Penny in her Shoe
by Moriwen1
Summary: A light-hearted alternative to Something Blue, with themes from Hell's Bells. Willow resorts to desperate measures when she can't lift her spell. Buffy/Spike.


_Oh, God. But I didn't mean to!_

_But you did. This is the result of your power. You will make a fine vengeance demon.  
_

_No, please! You have to help them!_

_It is not my concern. You are my interest in this matter._

_Well, my friends are my interest!_

_You don't have the power to save them._

_But if I accepted-I would?_

_I can't guarantee anything._

_...I accept._

* * *

"Don't you wish you really understood Buffy?" Willow hinted desperately. "Really knew how she felt about you, why she's marrying you..."

Spike looked at her like she'd lost her marbles. "Bloody hell, no. Understand Buffy? That'd blow a bloke's mind. Never met someone so messed up. Don't need that in my head, thank you kindly."

"Then why are you marrying her?" Willow nearly screamed, losing her patience entirely.

"Damned if I know. Now scamper, my favorite show's on."

Willow scampered obediently. Spike might be chipped and inexplicably (well, explicably for her) in love with Buffy, but he was still a force to be reckoned with.

Buffy was next on Willow's list. Willow couldn't just ask her friend to wish that she wasn't going to marry Spike-there was no way Buffy would agree to that, not to mention that she wouldn't be thrilled about Willow's recent change-but she could try to trick her. Which she felt vaguely guilty about, but the vague guilt didn't measure up to the overwhelming nausea caused by _Buffy and Spike getting married._

Willow found Buffy thumbing through bridal magazines. "Ooh, look, Willow!" she exclaimed by way of greeting. "I think I like this bridesmaid's dress."

Leaning over Buffy's shoulder, Willow was confronted with the most hideous monstrosity she had ever seen (and she'd seem some hideous monstrosities, in their line of work). The dress was frilly and lavender, with lime green patterns that looked like nothing so much as splattered vomit. The whole thing was topped off with a bow roughly the size of an umbrella. "It's gorgeous, Buffy."

"I'm glad you like it! Because you'll be my bridesmaid, right?"

_I will not in a million years be a bridesmaid at Spike's wedding. _"Of course. Buffy-"

"Yeah?"

"I feel like you're-rushing into this. I mean, you're kind of young to get married."

"I could get married when I'm ninety-five and on a walker, and Spike would still be lots older than me," Buffy pointed out.

Willow winced at the image. "Yeah, but . . . are you sure you really understand why you're doing this? Wouldn't it be better if you did?"

Shaking her head, Buffy replied, "Self-knowledge is overrated. Say, what do you think of these flowers?"

It took Willow three hours to escape, and she never did manage to get Buffy to make a wish.

After that, Willow gave up on the direct method. That obviously wasn't going to work. She couldn't ask Giles for advice-he'd get all scoldy about the spell, and then about the whole demon thing, and then about not asking him sooner. Besides, she wanted to do this on her own, prove herself as a witch. Vengeance demon. Whatever. She could ask Anya, or-

Xander. Of course.

* * *

"So let me get this straight." Xander was sprawled on his couch, hands to temples in an exaggerated "thinking" gesture. "You cast the spell that made Giles blind, and Buffy and Spike fall in love, and demons follow me around until I had to hide out in this stupid bomb shelter. Then you decided hey, I'll turn into a vengeance demon, that'll fix everything! But now you can't get Buffy or Spike to wish they weren't in love, because they are in love so they want to be in love. So now you want me to come up with a plan for you."

Willow nodded mutely, chin on her interlaced fingers.

"Will, I hate to break it to you, but I'm not really a plan sort of guy. That's more you, or Giles, or Buffy if the plan is 'punch something.'"

"You can be a plan guy," Willow said hopefully. "Please, Xander."

Xander made his put-on-a-brave-face face. "OK, I can be the plan guy. Plan man. Xan the plan man, that's me." He paused. "OK, how about this one. You go find Buffy and be all with the truth, right? You tell her there's a spell on her, and you need her to wish that it's gone, but you don't tell her what the spell is."

"I really don't think she'd be cool with the whole vengeance demon thing," Willow pointed out. "I mean, you've been great, but Buffy would freak out and decide I was evil."

"She's awfully cuddly with the one soulless evil demon," Xander muttered.

"Hey!"

"Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you were soulless. Or evil."

"Anyhow, she'd either freak and attack me, or she'd decide to go on a quest to get me human again, and then I wouldn't be able to break the spell. No way would she make a wish to a vengeance demon."

"Fair enough." Pause. "Do you think you could just do a counterspell or something? Get rid of the spell without the vengeance demon mojo?"

"Not a chance," Willow replied glumly. "Takes way more energy to undo a spell like that once you're not casting it anymore, and the casting wore off hours ago. No such luck with the effects, though."

There was a long silence. Finally, Xander opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again. "Hey, here's an idea. Who does Buffy trust?"

"Me, normally," answered Willow miserably. "But I don't think she'd be a big demon-Willow fan."

"No, I mean, she's always going on about trusting yourself."

"So I should, what, pretend to be her?"

"That's what I'm saying."

"There's just one problem with that, Xander."

"What?"

"She _is _herself. And she might, you know, notice that I'm not."

"Yeah. That could be a problem." Another pause. "I know! You could pretend to be Buffy-from the future!" Xander made a dramatic gesture to go with his pronouncement.

Willow giggled. "Hey, you know, that might work. I bet I could work up a glamour, too, so I'd look like her. Might be tricky, but shouldn't take more than a week."

"As long as you get it done before they get married."

"No problem. Now, I need you to go sneak these books from the library."

"Hey! Why me?"

* * *

As it turned out, it took Willow until the day of the wedding to whip up a halfway suitable glamour. Buffy snagged her first thing in the morning, dragged her down to the church, and made her spend the morning fussing over nails, trying on the hideous bridesmaid's dress, and talking girl talk. It wasn't until an hour before the wedding that she managed to get away ("have to go pee, be right back, Buffy, honest"). So she ended up having to cast the spell sitting cross-legged in the stall, with candles on the toilet seat and pile of rolls of toilet paper.

It was a bit hard to get in the proper mindset after that, but Willow tried to sound properly ominous as she burst into Buffy's changing room and recited the message she'd been rehearsing. "Behold! I, um, I am you from the future, come to warn you of, er, impending doom!"

Willow had never thought people's jaws actually dropped open when they were surprised. "You what now?" Buffy asked, looking a little dazed.

She hadn't really thought it through further than this. "The, uh, forces of evil, are converging! And the world will end if you don't stop it!"

"What, again?"

Willow decided to cut to the chase. "You can't marry Spike."

"Yes, I can."

"But I'm your future self! You have to do what I tell you!"

"Do not."

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Do-oh, forget it. But what about the apocalypse?"

Buffy shrugged. "We get, like, three of those a week around here. I'll deal. Got any stock market tips?"

"I don't really follow the stock market."

"Makes sense, since I don't, and you're me. Ooh! Do Spike and I have any kids, Future-Me?"

". . . Vampires can't have children."

"Oh, we were thinking about adopting," Buffy explained cheerfully. "So? How does that work out?"

That train of thought gave Willow an idea. "Terribly. It works out terribly. Your, um, your kids die. Terribly. Eaten alive."

"Well, great, now I can prevent that! When? Where? Spill!"

"Well, see, it's after the demons distract you by, um, torturing your mom in a hell dimension for a million years. So you go rescue her, and the demons eat your babies. All, um, all six of them. Terrible. Nothing you can do to stop it. Really, really bad demons."

"Huh."

"And, um, Spike goes evil and kills everyone you love."

"Wait, what? Is this before or after the child-eating demons?"

"Uh, before."

"I thought the demons tortured my mom? And my kids?"

"Well, he didn't kill them, obviously."

"Obviously."

"And it's a really awful marriage. Terrible. He, uh, beats you up, and gets drunk all the time, and doesn't pick up his laundry."

"That's kind of par for the course for us, actually," Buffy pointed out.

"Yeah, so, you probably shouldn't marry him."

"I can't just leave him at the altar."

"But, but, future knowledge! How are you not getting this? Don't you wish you weren't marrying him?"

Buffy's eyes went wide, and Willow realized she'd said the wrong thing. "You're not future-me at all, are you! You're a vengeance demon trying to trick me!" She threw a punch in Willow's direction, but stopped halfway through when her wedding dress gave a loud _rip_. "Shoot! You're a vengeance demon trying to trick me and _ruin my dress!"_

At Buffy's shrill shriek, the door opened. Xander was behind it.

"Xander! It's a demon!"

Xander looked a little freaked out by future-Buffy, but soldiered through. "No it's not. It's you from the future, obviously."

"Yes!" Willow put in. "I mean, no! I mean-"

"She is! She's an evil time-traveling demon masquerading as me in order to separate me and Spike and doom our love!" Buffy's voice reached a glass-shatteringly high pitch as she jabbed her finger at Willow accusingly.

"What's this now, Slayer?" Spike interjected, ambling in.

"Oh my god!" Buffy ducked behind Xander. "Spike, honey, you can't see me before the wedding! It's bad luck, and we don't need any more of that, because demon me-"

"Is trying to stop the wedding, right, love, I got it, it was a rhetorical question."

"You don't care, do you."

"No, love, not really." In the next room, the music started playing. "If you're going to beat the girl up, love, make it quick, not that I don't like watching. We're due in the aisle."

"Oh! I can't believe I forgot!" Buffy skipped over to Spike and plastered herself all over him. The vampire didn't look particularly displeased, and kissed her with enthusiasm. Eventually, she pulled away, only to gaze into his eyes and say, "Oh, Spike, this is the happiest day of my life."

"Yes, well, it'll be the most embarrassing if we don't get out there soon. Don't want people thinking I stood you up, pet."

The two left, arms linked. Xander looked apologetically at Willow-in-Buffy-guise, who was sunk to the floor in despair. "Giles?"

"Yeah."

Xander went to fetch Giles from the church. It wasn't long before he showed up with a flustered Giles in tow. Giles was still using his white cane, Willow noted guiltily. Maybe she'd be able to fix that, at least.

"Giles! It's me!" Willow exclaimed.

"By 'me,' she means Willow," Xander clarified. "She's just kind of magic-y at the moment."

Giles blinked. "Are you sure that isn't, say, a demon?"

"I'm not!" Willow said desperately. "Well, OK, I am, but I'm not evil or anything! And I'm Willow!"

". . . The honesty, at least, is refreshing."

"No, but I mean, I'm Willow."

"You are Willow . . . and a demon?"

"It's kind of a recent thing."

"I suppose it would have to be. If you are, in fact, Willow, why are you a demon?"

"It's a whole thing! I did this spell, and then there was this vengeance demon, and then I had to undo the spell, so I had to become a vengeance demon, but now I can't undo the spell, and-"

"What spell," Giles asked patiently, "did you do?"

"It was this whole 'my will be done' business, and it was supposed to fix things, but now Xander is a demon magnet and you're blind and Buffy's marrying Spike!"

"Ah." Giles reached for his spectacles to polish them, then remembered that he wasn't wearing them. "So, to clarify-you are now a vengeance demon? And it was your spell which has caused all these catastrophes?"

"Yeah." Willow did her best to look sheepish. She felt bad, but it hadn't been on purpose or anything, and it was pretty cool that she'd pulled the spell off.

"So having cast a very foolish spell that went badly awry, you thought the best course of action was to _become a vengeance demon?_ And that being done, instead of simply asking, oh, Xander, to make a wish for you, you decided to _claim to be Buffy from the future?_"

"Yeah?" The sheepishness was genuine, now. That hadn't occurred to her.

"We will be having a very long talk later," Giles warned her. "For the moment-" he paused to phrase his wish carefully- "I wish that your spell were ended, and its influence removed entirely from all those you have enchanted."

A strange power welled through Willow, and she just had time to think _oh, so that's how it works,_ before (like a twitch of a muscle she didn't know she had) the energy leapt out of her. "_Wish granted!_"

Nothing spectacular happened. Giles blinked a couple of times, then rummaged through his pocket and put his glasses back on.

"It worked, then?" Xander asked. "With the wishing, and the-fwoof?" He made a vague gesture with his hands.

"It worked," Giles confirmed.

"We should go explain about the wedding being called off," Willow pointed out. The three dashed out the door and in the back of the church. In the front, Spike and Buffy were standing in front of the altar, facing each other.

". . . this day forward, until death do you part?" the minister finished.

"I do." Spike's expression was a surreal combination of solemn and gleeful.

"I thought the spell was broken!" Xander whispered.

"It is," Willow and Giles answered simultaneously."

". . . to be your lawful husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, from this day forward, until death do you part?"

Buffy's voice, clear and cheerful. "I do."

"Then I declare you: man and wife. You may now kiss the bride."

Giles stared at the scene in the sanctuary, then glanced at Willow. "I think I preferred being blind."


End file.
